The Simpsons Movie by Paul Bullock

A decade ago, the general public's reception of The Simpsons Movie would have been not too dissimilar to Homer's response to a pink frosted doughnut. At the height of their popularity back in the early-to-mid-nineties, Matt Groening’s signature creations were untouchable, hailed both as top-notch entertainment by kids and cultural milestones by critics. However, after several below-par seasons and the rise of copycats such as Family Guy and South Park, the show has begun to wilt and the idea of Homer, Marge and the kids hitting the big-screen has received a slightly muted reception. Can The Simpsons prove the world wrong and show there’s still life in the eighteen-year old dog yet?

Early indications don’t bode well. Following an entertaining (but slightly unnecessary) extended Itchy and Scratchy episode, the film proper kicks off with a plot that is every bit as wacky as we‘ve come to expect in recent years. Celebrity cameoers Green Day meet their grisly demise in the polluted local lake encouraging the residents of Springfield to heed the advice of Lisa Simpson and clean up their environmental act. Sadly, Homer hasn’t been listening quite as intently as some of his friends and uses said beauty spot as a dumping ground for the droppings of his newly-acquired piggy pal. The lake becomes infected and the government gets involved, quarantining the town in a giant glass dome.

Predictably it’s down to The Simpsons to save the day (again!), and eighteen years down the line there are moments in their adventure when repetition begins to set in. Old jokes and classic story-lines are re-used, with Flanders taking in a wayward Simpson child, Krusty spitting out his own burgers after recording an advert and Homer failing to jump Springfield gorge. In fact there’s a somewhat pedestrian pace to the film, the perfectly-honed rat-a-tat-tat rhythm of the TV show dulled slightly in a bid to meet the running length and give every major character a fan-pleasing line or gag, some of which are good (Wiggum’s close shave with his gun), some not so good (do we really need to see Comic Book Guy during a moment of high-tension?)

Yet, despite these (not entirely unexpected) blips, the majority of The Simpsons Movie feels amazingly fresh for a franchise so old. Unlike most long-running TV shows-turned-films, there's a genuine attempt here to evolve the mythology. Regular adversaries (and intricate plot instigators) Sideshow Bob and Mr Burns are passed over in favour of a new villain, politician Russ Cargill (magnificently voiced by regular cameoer Albert Brooks), while the more relaxed censorship film affords the creators allows them to indulge in all the nudity, swearing and under-age drinking that‘s unacceptable for primetime Fox.

Strangely enough, though, they do not use this new-found freedom to indulge their political side. The current hot-topic of global warming is nothing more than a McGuffin and the most obviously Bush-baiting gag is a pleasingly subtle one-liner from Tom Hanks about the government‘s faltering credibility. Some of the show’s more hardcore fans may find this disappointing, symptomatic even of its softening over the years. But in our age of Live Earths and Live 8s, when everyone and anyone with a guitar thinks they’re a politician, mocking President Bush and the war on terror would seem both trite and pointless.

What’s more, the show’s greatest success has always been its family dynamic rather than overt political satire. This has become lost in recent years, thanks mainly to the writers’ desire to turn Marge and Homer into caricatures and Maggie into an adult in a diaper. Although the latter of these issues remains, Marge and Homer (who were always the crux of the family anyway) are back to their classic selves, she the frustrated housewife, he the loveable man-child. This is most obviously seen in the film’s (and perhaps series‘s) emotional high-point when Marge packs up and leaves, forcing a never-more vulnerable Homer to choose between his own happiness and that of his family.

Sure, this is nothing new, but here it’s lent a gravitas that it hasn‘t had on the small screen for some years. The scope and longer-running length of cinema have allowed the show‘s creators to experiment with gags, plot-lines and visuals and they have proven they can still, even at eighteen years old, produce both regular laughs and genuine emotional beats. Indeed, with revelations, character twists and new faces looking like they’ll hang around into the series proper, The Simpsons Movie has proved that America’s first family can not only conquer the big screen with no problems, but can comfortably survive on its smaller cousin for many more years to come.